Dried orange slices are the easiest natural Christmas decoration there is. You need oranges, an oven and an afternoon. This walkthrough follows Jan Howell of You Make It Simple, who slices four oranges, dries them low and slow at 250F, then strings them on jute for a six foot garland and hangs the spares on the tree as single ornaments.
What makes her version work is the drying, not the stringing. Quarter inch slices, blotted dry, flipped after the first hour and pulled while still slightly soft, then left on a rack overnight. Do that and the slices stay bright orange and translucent instead of going brown at the edges. Jan Howell also puts the twine holes at eleven and one o'clock rather than dead center, which is why her garland hangs with every slice facing forward.
The same slices pair with cinnamon ornaments and salt dough ornaments on the tree, or wired into a Christmas wreath. Leftovers go into potpourri.
Dehydrator and air drying, if you would rather not use the oven
A dehydrator does the same job with less watching. Lay the blotted slices on the trays without overlapping, set it to 135F, and give it 8 to 12 hours. Longer than the oven, but you can start it at bedtime and the colour comes out brighter because the heat never spikes.
Air drying works in a dry house and nowhere else. Thread the slices on string with space between them, hang somewhere warm with moving air, and wait three to five days. In a humid kitchen they will mould before they dry, so this is a radiator-in-winter method rather than a summer one.
Keeping them orange instead of brown
Browning is heat, not time. At 250F the sugars on the cut face caramelise before the water has left, and the edge goes amber. Drop to 200F and add an hour if your oven runs hot, and prop the door open a crack with a wooden spoon so the moisture escapes rather than steaming the slices.
Blotting is the other half. Every drop of juice left on the surface has to boil off, and while it does, that patch of fruit is cooking rather than drying. Press each slice between two sheets of kitchen paper before it goes on the tray.
Thin navel oranges dry brighter than thick-skinned varieties. Blood oranges go a deep wine colour rather than orange, which is worth knowing before you buy six of them.
How long they keep
Fully dried slices last a couple of years in a sealed tin somewhere dark. A slice that was pulled slightly soft will keep for one season and then go leathery, which is fine on a tree in December and not fine in a drawer in June. Bend one to test: it should snap rather than flex.
Store them flat with baking paper between the layers. Stacked loose in a bag they chip at the edges, and a chipped slice is obvious on a garland.
Other things to do with them
Tie a single slice to a parcel with twine and a sprig of rosemary and the wrapping is finished. Drop two into a pan of red wine with cinnamon and cloves for mulled wine. Fill a bowl with the broken ones, a handful of star anise and a few pine cones and that is a centrepiece. The scraps go in the compost or, if you dried them hard, into a spice grinder for orange powder.
